Widlarize

From Widlar +‎ -ize. Named after American electronics engineer Bob Widlar (1937–1991), pronounced /ˈwaɪdləɹ/, who was known for destroying his components using the method.

• IPA^(key): /ˈwaɪdləɹaɪz/, (commonly) /ˈwɪdləɹaɪz/

• Audio (Southern England); /ˈwaɪdləɹaɪz/:

  (file)

• Audio (Southern England); /ˈwɪdləɹaɪz/:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: Wid‧ler‧ize

Widlarize (third-person singular simple present Widlarizes, present participle Widlarizing, simple past and past participle Widlarized)

1. (transitive, electronics, slang, uncommon) To destroy (a defective electronic component) using a hammer.
   • 1991, Robert A Pease, “First Things First: The Philosophy of Troubleshooting”, in Troubleshooting Analog Circuits: With Electronics Workbench Circuits, Boston, Mass.: Newnes, published 1993, →ISBN, page 9:

     Now, when I have finished my inspection, and I am still mad as hell because I have wasted a lot of time being fooled by a bad component—what do I do? I usually WIDLARIZE it, and it makes me feel a lot better. How do you WIDLARIZE something? You take it over to the anvil part of the vice, and you beat on it with a hammer, until it is all crunched down to tiny little pieces, so small that you don't even have to sweep it off the floor. It sure makes you feel better. And the late Bob Widlar is the guy who showed me how to do it.

   • 1999 February 9, Doug, “High Output Tube Amp”, in rec.audio.tubes‎ (Usenet):

     Abuse of them by people who don't care about the RF they generate is leading certain people to buy up and Widlarize ones floating around hamfests.

   • 1999 July 25, Bob Pease, “Pease Porridge: What’s All that Widlar Stuff, Anyhow?”, in Stephen E. Scrupski, editor, Electronic Design, volume 39, number 14, Cleveland, Oh.: Penton Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 146, column 3:

     I recommend that you join me in doing this "Widlarizing" when a bad component fools you. You will feel a lot better.

   • 2002 April 28, Daniel Lang, “Interesting Failure, Seagate ST41600N”, in sci.electronics.design‎ (Usenet):

     I decided to "Widlarize" the failed drive, first dropping it 4 feet onto the floor (1/2" thick carpet with concrete underneath). To my surprise, about half the chips popped off the PC board! Close inspection of the failed joints seems to indicate a failure of the bond between the solder and the copper of the PC board.

   • 2006 February 8, Terry Given, “IGBTs are pretty fast”, in sci.electronics.design‎ (Usenet):

     A diode-like interconnect once cost me, another engineer and a tech 3 days once – we narrowed the fault down to a resistive divider that didnt work linearly. replacing the protoboard fixed the problem; the old one got Widlarised.

   • 2014 May 25, Charles Platt, “Experiment 13: No Loud Speaking!”, in Brian Jepson, editor, Make: More Electronics, Sebastopol, Calif.: Maker Media, →ISBN, page 91:

     Widlar's intolerance for defective parts and malfunctioning prototypes was so intense, he was in the habit of destroying them with a sledge hammer. This came to be known as "widlarizing" them.